I Give Up
I give up. I got another skein of wool and tried the Kool-Aid dyeing thing again. I followed the instructions, and it started looking like it was going okay, but my three colors (purple, red, green) ended up melding into a pukey purplish color. This time I think I will get some grape Kool-Aid and re-dye it. I am going to pass (at least temporarily) on the variagated yarn. I did wind the first yarn I dyed into a ball last night. I will use that for some mittens for next year's Dulaan Project, which is hopefully going to happen again.
Took the boys to the beach today. I didn't take the camera. Had too much to carry, as hubby took my duffle bag and didn't return it, so when I wanted it it was in the truck with him somewhere between here and Halifax. They had a blast, but of course every time I decide to go to the beach, no matter how hot it is, it's always foggy and a heck of a lot cooler. We stayed for about two hours. Both went to sleep a lot earlier than usual, especially Darren. (Mental note - poop 'em out really well at the beach or some place similar for a nice, quiet evening.) The next couple of days it's going to be really hot - the "stay inside" kind of day, let the boys play outside in the evening when it's cooler.
I finished Trellis today. It is blocking as we speak (or should I say I type). Will take a pic tomorrow in its totally finished stage. It turned out really nice. Think I will do my own cabled pattern of about the same size loosely based on this one. I want to do different cable panels and modify the cuffs and waistband somewhat. We'll see. On my too-long "To Do" list.
One of the girls at work went strawberry picking last night. I bought a flat from her. I love strawberries. I could probably eat that flat in one day. I ended up freezing three boxes, cut up three boxes for strawberry shortcake and just plain eating, and used the last six boxes for my first-time freezer jam. I got 12-250ml jar, had to dig an empty cheez whiz bottle out of the recyclables, plus had a little bit left I just threw into a plastic container. It tastes really good, but it could be a little firmer. I mashed two boxes of the berries and just cut the other four boxes up. I like chunky jam. Anyways, I guess freezer jam isn't as thick as cooked jam. This will do me fine. Some of them at work put it on ice cream. This would be really good for that. I will give Ma and Pa two jars, and I froze the other 10.
Well, must get going. I had way too much stuff to post tonight, both personal and business stuff that I let go for over a week. Plus I got the accountant to write out how I was to post all that crap so far for replacing the old truck with the new one. One thing doesn't look quite right to me, but the other couple of accounts involved look okay. Will have to get her to take a look. Everything must be done right. Darren's room looks like it blew up, gotta bath....
Happy knitting!
posted by lexa at
10:28 PM
1 Comments:
Dont give up! Try this method (I made it up myself and in fact did it with your gift yarn and it worked really well) I find if you use two colours only then the bleed is a lot less - and they dye doesn't always take equally so you still get a fair amount of variation which is nice.
First wind the wool into balls with the woolwinder so the bottom of it fits comfortably in a teacup. Pour your koolaid solution into the teacup (whatever concentration you like - I used one package of pink stuff) then put your ball of wool in the teacup. Push it around a bit so the dye soaks into the middle of the ball ok (the top halfish of the ball will be undyed) and then microwave it in two minute blasts until all the dye is taken up.
Allow wool to cool whilst cleaning out the cup and putting in the second colour (I used blue stuff). Turn the wool over and dye the other side in the same way.
Brown bits happen when you mix colours that make brown when they spill together. EG: blue and pink will be okay cause when they mix it equals purple which is fine. But if you tried anything green in between you would end up with muddy colours. Yellow would be okay, because where it bled into the blue it would cause green and where it bled into the pink it would cause apricot - but then the green and apricot bits could never touch each other. You can avoid this by only dyeing one part of the wool at a time (leave the other stuff hanging out of the dyepot)
Or you can stop the colour bleed by using your dye in guar gum instead of water (it is thick then and it won't bleed into the other colours). I don't think guar gum would be impossible to find - but it may take a bit of research.
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